Preview — The History Manifesto
by David Armitage

The History Manifesto

How should historians speak truth to power - and why does it matter? Why is five hundred years better than five months or five years as a planning horizon? And why is history - especially long-term history - so essential to understanding the multiple pasts which gave rise to our conflicted present? The History Manifesto is a call to arms to historians and everyone interestHow should historians speak truth to power - and why does it matter? Why is five hundred years better than five months or five years as a planning horizon? And why is history - especially long-term history - so essential to understanding the multiple pasts which gave rise to our conflicted present? The History Manifesto is a call to arms to historians and everyone interested in the role of history in contemporary society. Leading historians Jo Guldi and David Armitage identify a recent shift back to longer-term narratives, following many decades of increasing specialisation, which they argue is vital for the future of historical scholarship and how it is communicated. This provocative and thoughtful book makes an important intervention in the debate about the role of history and the humanities in a digital age. It will provoke discussion among policymakers, activists and entrepreneurs as well as ordinary listeners, viewers, readers, students and teachers. This title is also available as Open Access....more

Community Reviews

The History Manifesto was published in October 2014 and immediately provoked an avalanche of positive and negative reactions. Mission accomplished for Guldi and Armitage, because with a manifesto you want to provoke some reaction and they did indeed. What follows is not a review, but a brief summary (below I’ll explain why).

Guldi and Armitage argue for making the historical métier relevant again (and by that they mean mainly the organized, academic historical research). According to them, historThe History Manifesto was published in October 2014 and immediately provoked an avalanche of positive and negative reactions. Mission accomplished for Guldi and Armitage, because with a manifesto you want to provoke some reaction and they did indeed. What follows is not a review, but a brief summary (below I’ll explain why).

Guldi and Armitage argue for making the historical métier relevant again (and by that they mean mainly the organized, academic historical research). According to them, historians in the second half of the 20th century started to focus on ever more specialized subjects, over a very limited time scale. And that is why they left the public field to economists, sociologists and anthropologists, because those people are now making the show in institutions that matter (international, national, supranational) and usually have a direct line with policy makers in all possible sectors. The historians must therefore "go public" again, and according to Guldi and Armitage they can do this in three ways: 1. by focusing on issues that matter today, in particular climate change, growing inequality and the global governance crisis; 2. By focusing more on the "longue durée" in their research, a term that naturally they derive from the renowned French historian Fernand Braudel; with a broader time scale they mean much broader than the 5 to 50 years that – according to them – now is the norm, and they even suggest to go to 500 years if possible; 3. Guldi and Armitage argue for working as quantitatively as possible in that timescale and utilizing all the possibilities of the world of the Big Data; because only in this way really relevant conclusions can be drawn for the future. Finally, they stress that historians can play an essential role in the Big Data revolution, because they are the only ones (read: in contrast to social scientists) who can handle the time factor in a responsible manner.

I know I left out some nuances, but that are the laws of a short summary, and since Guldi and Armitage use a fairly direct style, I don’t think they would object. I suspect that reading this summary you immediately had both positive and negative comments. I did too. But because this review would become too long, I refer to my History-alias on Goodreads where I summed up my comments (see link https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...)....more

Looking at the avalanche of reactions on this Manifesto Guldi and Armitage surely succeeded in drawing attention to their message. And reading the manifest I guess any one immediately will have both positive and negative comments. To me – I’m an amateur-historian, not an academic one – the feelings were very mixed and even contradictory.

1. There’s nothing against historians "going public" and trying to get the ear of policy makers at all levels; on the contrary, historians and social scientistsLooking at the avalanche of reactions on this Manifesto Guldi and Armitage surely succeeded in drawing attention to their message. And reading the manifest I guess any one immediately will have both positive and negative comments. To me – I’m an amateur-historian, not an academic one – the feelings were very mixed and even contradictory.

1. There’s nothing against historians "going public" and trying to get the ear of policy makers at all levels; on the contrary, historians and social scientists in general should definitely be heard much more on the issues that matter today; so I absolutely agree with the basic intention of Guldi and Armitage. The question is: how should historians do that? Some would say: by just doing their job, looking at the most different aspects of history, scrupulously applying the critical method, and publishing the results in all transparency. All right, sure. But should they focus on topics that are ‘relevant’ for today or not? And should they limit their energy to an academic public, or should they try to get the attention of decision makers, or of the widest possible public? Difficult questions, indeed. Personally I’m inclined to answer yes on both accounts. But at the same time, I’m aware of the dangers of ‘presentism’ and of ‘vulgarization’. A lot of historians are doing very valuable work, just limiting themselves to academic subjects and an academic public, and we ought to respect them for that. But I share the sense of urgency of the History Manifesto to make historical research more relevant indeed.

2. That historians in the last century narrowed their focus too much (geographical, chronological or thematic), is a hypothesis that I – instinctively – would support. But on this point Guldi and Armitage have received a lot of criticism by other historians who statistically have shown that their allegation is not correct, and that already since the 1970’s the historical focus has become wider and wider (which actually shows that you have to be very careful with statistical data). Personally, I regretted that Guldi and Armitage in their History Manifesto almost completely ignored the wave of publications in the field of Global/World/Big/Connected/Transnational- /Environmental History (etc). In their answer on the critical responses to the manifesto they admitted that their allegation indeed was exaggerated.

3. I still struggle most of all with their very explicit proposition that only “the longue durée” and the use of Big Data can make historical research relevant again. You don’t have to convince me of the value of a broader time scale, I'm a big fan of Global/World/Big/etc. -research (see my reading list). But in the meantime, I have also noticed that a wider chronological period not automatically equals greater relevance. At that point in their manifesto Guldi and Armitage also nuance their stance, and they point to the value of studies in the field of "micro-history", though in other places again they are very disparaging about the “Short Past”-craze. So, their position on this point is rather contradictory.

4. And then there is the use of Big Data or the quantitative approach to history. I still am very torn about this. Already in the 1960’s and 1970’s there was a first attempt to quantify the history research, but that failed almost completely, as also Guldi an Armitage point out. But quite rightly they state that in the meantime the world has profoundly changed and that there is much more possible since the digital revolution and the rise of Big Data. No doubt that is correct, and also the fiercest critics of the History Manifesto agree. But I’m still struggling with the methodological implications of that Big Data approach: how are the data selected, how are they digitalized, how can you correlate them correctly, can you really digitalize everything, etc? Guldi and Armitage do not provide any solutions on these important questions.

5. That historians are much more familiar with the time factor and therefore very trained in causality and even in the problematic side of causality relationships for me also is evident. But putting all economists, sociologists, anthropologists and evolutionary biologists on the side of amateurism (as the History Manifesto does) is downright unfair. Guldi and Armitage in each case have a point that historians indeed have something to say on causality, but I wouldn’t overrate that.

6. what worries me most in the History Manifesto is that again and again Guldi and Armitage stress that historians should look to the future as much as to the past; they are a bit ambivalent about this; in some places they contend that studying the past offers a better insight in how there were always different options and thus that the future never is/was determined, but in other places I have the impression that they really want to discover patterns and laws, and suggesting a kind of determinism in history. Personally, I think historians really should abstain of speaking about the future.

7. The list of possible comments can still be made much longer, but just on final note here on the tone and style of the manifesto. A manifest must be sharp, that’s particular to the genre, but to my taste Guldi and Armitage definitely go over the edge, a bit like college students would do (it's rather childish in the 21st Century to begin and end a manifesto with a nearly literal repeat of the start- and end words of the famous Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels, 1848). Their message sometimes is very repetitive and also contradictory, and often very offending for other historians and social scientists. And that is a pity, because – fundamentally – the issues our world is facing today, really are worth also to get the attention of historians.

Still, I very much recommend the reading of the manifesto, and of its critiques. Because it really helps to understand the challenges historians and other human scientists face in our time. It’s all on the open net, just use your search engine....more

I sympathized with the main arguments of this book but didn't find it terribly coherent, persuasive, or revelatory. The book features a series of arguments that add up to a guide for modern historians on how and why to engage in public debates about issues like climate change, inequality, and governance. They start by arguing that much of early-mid 20th century history was shaped by Braudel-style longue duree history that investigated macro-trends through wide-angle lenses. This fell out of fashI sympathized with the main arguments of this book but didn't find it terribly coherent, persuasive, or revelatory. The book features a series of arguments that add up to a guide for modern historians on how and why to engage in public debates about issues like climate change, inequality, and governance. They start by arguing that much of early-mid 20th century history was shaped by Braudel-style longue duree history that investigated macro-trends through wide-angle lenses. This fell out of fashion in 60's and 70's when micro-histories dominated by culture, class, gender, and race became dominant in the discipline. Their explanation for this shift was interesting. Obviously it was linked to the social justice movements of this era and to the various "turns" (cultural, linguistic, transnational) etc. It was also a product of the vast surge in the number of Ph.D students emerging from the expansion of educational opportunity following WWII. This created an incentive to "write more and more and less and less" in order to fill in gaps in existing scholarships. Longue Duree history became to be seen as not only untenable for young researchers, but even a bit oppressive: part of buying in to grand or master narratives centered around the nation and powerful political/economic actors at the expense of everyone else.

While they grant that the rise of micro-history was necessary and illuminating, they also argue that it had a few major downsides. It made historians less equipped for participating in the long-term debates that every society has, for questions like "Why is their persisting inequality?" or "How should we best understand the relationship between people and the environment?" They argue that historians should be best equipped to answer these questions for several reasons but that short-term thinking dominant in the academy inhibits this. 1. Historians should be able to evaluate Big Data arguments, figuring out the contexts in which data is collected and sussing out the responsible uses of historical data from irresponsible ones. 2. Historians can show how certain concepts or institutions are not eternal but constructed in real time by conscious actors and interactions. This can help us get away from macro-explanations of things like inequality that rely on iron laws of economic behavior. 3 Historians can present much more complex, multi-perspectival accounts of big questions that economists or other commentators.

The authors' arguments here would have been stronger if they had not caricatured the work of economists and other social scientists and actually spent the time to refute some of their claims in extended case studies. The authors' rely heavily on the idea that the job of a scholar is to confront and "destabilize" powerful people and institutions, which puts them very much in the micro-history camp they also criticize. Overall, I just didn't get a strong sense of the type of history they wanted other than the general synthesis, which appears to exist in droves already. So you could say I agreed with the individual pieces of this argument (it definitely helped explain many of the arguments I've had in graduate school about how best to conduct historical research) but they didn't add up to a persuasive, forceful conclusion.

This would be a good book for people taking their comps in fields like social, environmental, and global history. As someone with a more traditional historical methodology and little time for theory, I found the book less enlightening. Doesn't hold a candle to other investigations of the historian's craft and role in society, especially Gaddis' outstanding "Landscape of History."...more

In one line, and from my own interest, the book argues the main point that “historians can be guardians against parochial perspectives and endemic short-termism.” [p. 125] Armitage & Guldi opening gambit is [p. 13]:

“History’s power to liberate, we argue, ultimately lies in explaining where things came from, tacking between big processes and small events to see the whole picture, and reducing a lot of information to a small and shareable version. We recommend these methods to a society plagueIn one line, and from my own interest, the book argues the main point that “historians can be guardians against parochial perspectives and endemic short-termism.” [p. 125] Armitage & Guldi opening gambit is [p. 13]:

“History’s power to liberate, we argue, ultimately lies in explaining where things came from, tacking between big processes and small events to see the whole picture, and reducing a lot of information to a small and shareable version. We recommend these methods to a society plagued by false ideas about the past and how it limits our collective hopes for the future.”

There are several places in the book where Armitage & Guldi sum up the points of their argument, but I thought there comment in the concluding chapter on the three new trends in the writing of history did it the best [p. 117]:

“first, a need for new narratives capable of being read, understood, and engaged by non-experts; second, an emphasis on visualisation and digital tools; and third, a fusion between the big and the small, the ‘micro’ and the ‘macro’, that harnesses the best of archival work on the one hand and big-picture work about issues of common concern on the other.”

I encourage you to read sections of the book to get the full sense of these themes. I think this is what we should be doing in our local histories, in our family histories, in our institutional histories, and in various state or global histories.

The big mistake to make about The History Manifesto is to believe that it dismisses the place and value of micro-history. What the book is calling for is a marriage of macro and micro work [pp. 119, 120, 121]. The key problem for the authors is “micro-history that fails to reconnect to larger narratives, and to state frankly what it hopes to overturn and what to uphold, may court antiquarianism” [p. 121.] As professional historians, there is always the tension between the virtue of public mission and the virtue of the scholarship. This is wonderfully captured by Armitage & Guldi in a paragraph which lists different features of our ‘human science’ but to which seems to get out of balance as having one virtue, others are mute or missing in action [p. 124].

The 'take-home lesson' is that “Knowledge of the past is therefore a source for understanding the extent to which we have free will in the future.” [p. 31]...more

Modeled in form upon The Communist Manifesto, this is a clever attempt to call historians as a professional class back to public and academic relevancy, or rather back to their erstwhile preeminence as arbiters of public perception and political advisement. I wholeheartedly agree with the goals and premises of the book for one simple reason: Our present is entirely a product of our past.

This treatise explores the division between micro- and macro-history and gives a history of their respectiveModeled in form upon The Communist Manifesto, this is a clever attempt to call historians as a professional class back to public and academic relevancy, or rather back to their erstwhile preeminence as arbiters of public perception and political advisement. I wholeheartedly agree with the goals and premises of the book for one simple reason: Our present is entirely a product of our past.

This treatise explores the division between micro- and macro-history and gives a history of their respective historiographies. As someone given to macro-thought, I was informed about the tremendous value that micro-history has in fact provided the discipline, to wit: "All of these refinements to our understanding of watershed moments are built upon a deep foundation of micro-historical research" on pg. 36. The authors also quote Kingsley Amis in humorously critiquing the excesses, or perhaps costs, of an exclusive focus on micro-history: "It was a perfect title, in that it crystallized the article's niggling mindlessness, it funereal parade of yawn-enforcing facts, the pseudo-light it threw upon non-problems" on pg. 50.

Economists have attempted to imperialize history as they have attempted with all other social sciences, but there are reasons why this is impossible in the case of history, e.g. "Data are abused when they are examined as a single facet of historical experience. Both positive and negative assessments from the past from economics abstract single dimensions of experience--wages, the price of grain, or height--as a proxy for freedom, democracy or happiness" on pg. 59. Instead, "History, with its rich, material understanding of human experience and institutions and its apprehension of multiple causality, is reentering the arena of long-term discussions of time where evolutionary biologists, archaeologists, climate scientists, and economists have long been the only protagonists. Today, we desperately need an arbiter for these mythological histories, capable of casting out prejudice, reestablishing consensus about the actual boundaries of the possible, and in so doing opening up a wider future and destiny for modern civilizations" on pg. 87.

I just finished this, and have to think about my review . The book was both infuriating and thought provoking at the same time. I found myself agreeing with, engaged and excited about the author's points while later wondering what the hell they were talking about. As I have also just finished "Hamilton's Republic" I found myself comparing the two, the lessons available thru the study of history. A fuller review requires some thought and clarity about how I really feel, though I gave it 4 stars jI just finished this, and have to think about my review . The book was both infuriating and thought provoking at the same time. I found myself agreeing with, engaged and excited about the author's points while later wondering what the hell they were talking about. As I have also just finished "Hamilton's Republic" I found myself comparing the two, the lessons available thru the study of history. A fuller review requires some thought and clarity about how I really feel, though I gave it 4 stars just because it made all of this thinking necessary . : to be continued ..........more

A lot more academics call for better public engagement and more creative academic thinking than actually do better public engagement and more creative academic thinking. The History Manifesto practices what it preaches. As an academic (far) outside the field of history, I was able to digest this short book easily and to grasp the authors' description of the movements of thought in the field -- the history of history.

They argue that in the latter half of the 20th century, long-term history gaveA lot more academics call for better public engagement and more creative academic thinking than actually do better public engagement and more creative academic thinking. The History Manifesto practices what it preaches. As an academic (far) outside the field of history, I was able to digest this short book easily and to grasp the authors' description of the movements of thought in the field -- the history of history.

They argue that in the latter half of the 20th century, long-term history gave way to focused microhistories, and that long-term history is coming back. They don't argue that microhistories should go away, but that the tools developed for such deep-dives into archival materials can now be applied to longer spans of time and bigger datasets. Microhistory in massive parallel, if you will.

I think they're right, and I especially appreciate the well-chosen examples of what they're talking about. As a chemist who constantly strays into geological and biological history, I am all for the parallel movement in natural history (although I was hoping to find a little more inspiration for my own natural history thoughts than I did here). If anything, their critiques of evolutionary biology should be more intense.

The only thing that tugs at me is a sense that they already know where their field will lead -- that the conclusions of new history will take down the ideas of those rival laissez-faire economists who always show up as dramatic foils in this narrative. Awareness of your own biases is crucial when designing these new historical studies and this book is more about inspiring new methods than in cautioning on the wrong turns that can be taken when implementing new methods. They're basically arguing that "cliometrics" should return as a data-driven historical field of study (while arguing that the ones really qualified to interpret such data must be trained historians) but they also honestly present the fact that the first studies to use this term back in the 70s were embarrassingly flawed. Why were they flawed? I would like to dig down more into how these flaws can be prevented from happening. Most of all, I want to be surprised by the data, so "knowing the result before it starts" is something to avoid.

The only reason I can even make a critique like that is because this book genuinely talks about important and foundational issues, and that's the sign of a good book....more

With an overly simplistic view of and distinction between longue duree and what they call short-term history, Jo Guldi and David Armitage argue that long-term history is the main or perhaps only way to provide public historical engagement. Their thesis and argumentation are unconvincing, and mostly just boring.

The authors call historians to return to public and academic relevancy, as arbiters of public perception and political advisement. This treatise explores the division between micro- and macro-history and gives a history of their respective historiographies.

Generally a good read, if you don’t mind the academic style. The theme is compelling, for sure, however, the book is too broad-based for my liking. Perhaps that’s the message of the book, come to think of it.

I can’t say I thoroughly enjoyed the book, yet I cannot say I disliked it either.

As an amateur history enthusiast, there are many parts of the book that fail to leave an impression. Also, the repeated references to climate change were uninteresting.

In fact, if you do not want to go through tGenerally a good read, if you don’t mind the academic style. The theme is compelling, for sure, however, the book is too broad-based for my liking. Perhaps that’s the message of the book, come to think of it.

I can’t say I thoroughly enjoyed the book, yet I cannot say I disliked it either.

As an amateur history enthusiast, there are many parts of the book that fail to leave an impression. Also, the repeated references to climate change were uninteresting.

In fact, if you do not want to go through the book, read the introduction — it provides a very good overview of what the book is all about, and should satisfy an amateur’s understanding of the three approaches that the book talks of.

In conclusion, I think this books is written for a very specific audience; and it’s not me....more

Short volume of historiography. Authors decry the change in history writing from 1970 to 2000 moreorless from long term history to shorter time frames and more specific topics. There is some indication this change took place because of a vast expansion in the number of Phds awarded and not enough jobs to take them on; historians felt forced to make their mark working on more and more specific fields of inquiry. They chart how historians have been replaced in the world of politics by economists.Short volume of historiography. Authors decry the change in history writing from 1970 to 2000 moreorless from long term history to shorter time frames and more specific topics. There is some indication this change took place because of a vast expansion in the number of Phds awarded and not enough jobs to take them on; historians felt forced to make their mark working on more and more specific fields of inquiry. They chart how historians have been replaced in the world of politics by economists. Authors feel that climate science and international government would benefit from long tern studies. The problems and possibilities of information overload are discussed. Skipped some of the last two chapters. ...more

A curious catenation of three distinct arguments. First, that historians should write histories that take a longer view than the typically "lifetime" span that has dominated professional history for the last forty years. Second, that Big Data -- that is, the analysis of large quantitative data sets -- is providing a new platform for doing history, and that historiographical methods need to be revised to integrate these data sets. And third, that these two trends, somehow together, will make histA curious catenation of three distinct arguments. First, that historians should write histories that take a longer view than the typically "lifetime" span that has dominated professional history for the last forty years. Second, that Big Data -- that is, the analysis of large quantitative data sets -- is providing a new platform for doing history, and that historiographical methods need to be revised to integrate these data sets. And third, that these two trends, somehow together, will make history more relevant to policy makers, bringing history back to the more prominent public position it allegedly held in the middle of the twentieth century, but which it has since ceded to economics. Each of these arguments may have some merit on their own, but how they fit together remains nebulous....more

Heavy academic read. Interesting premise. Forget those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it. It's those who fail to look at the long term are doomed to miss the signs. It struck chords with my fear that the immediacy of our tech advances have cost society, but it was the additional pieces that the authors included that I hadn't considered as implications. Food for thought.

David Armitage is a British historian known for his writings on international and intellectual history. He is chair of the history department and Lloyd C. Blankfein Professor of History at Harvard University.